Detective Bones
by The Sand Assassin
Summary: The boys are playing with human remains. Heiji has a hard time swallowing the fact that there is one field Conan actually knows a little better then him. But who the hell are their own detective AND forensic team? It seems unfair! Slight Heiji x Shinichi if you choose to read it as such. Drabble.


An unfortunate kitchen accident had me banned from the human osteology labs by my supervisor. With no longer access to any materials, and a practical exam due (Right now, the exam is in 9 hours). I decided I'd just create my own example and see if I can remember the things I've learned. It's just a drabble, but I thought it would be an interest idea to write a story from my studies. if anyone want any further explanation of anything I've written, do let me know.

There can be Heiji x Shinichi if you choose to read it as such, entirely up to the reader.

I don't own, and I'm sorry for any mistake as english is not my native language.

It happened every time they met. Anyone with the slight notion or wish to commit murder for revenge would act upon their dark desires the moment the two of them came into yelling distance. If it wasn't cold blooded murder, every dead body would call out to them. It was as if they were cursed or something. Not that it didn't make their encounters exciting, but Heiji could really do without all the death just once.

Today, wasn't any different. Someone had decided it was a good idea to go mountain climbing together (Note, Ran and Kazuha). Not that Heiji minded too much, he'd welcome any excuse to spend time with Kudou. The not-child was currently wheezing for air, the hour-long track up the mountain being a great toll on the little body.

"I could carry yeh if yah wanted," the Ousakan asked gleefully, eyes dancing with unbound mirth under his caps. Kudou flashed him an ill-tempered look.

"I'm tempted to take you up on the offer just to see you having to struggle up the mountain path with more weight on you, don't test my patience Hattori."

Heiji smirked in responds. _Why always so grumpy, Kudou-kun?_ He plucked on the rim of his caps and pushed it further down his face. "Don't be like that, Kudou, you barely weight anything. I bet I could carry you with one arm without breaking any sweat!"

The detective of the East's eyes flashed dangerously. "Shut it, Hattori, or I'll push you off the nearest cliff. It's entirely too hot to having any sorts of discussion." With that, the not-child collected his strength to run off to Ran and Kazuha in the front. A brief exchange of word, then Ran grabbed his offered hand. Heiji snorted with amusement. Sometimes the other detective was too easy to rile up.

The dark skinned detective had to admit Ran and Kazuha had chosen a particularly good day to go mountain walking. The temperature was balanced perfectly between not too cold that they'd freeze and not too warm that they would sweat when walking. The idyll of the mountainside was abruptly broken when a scream of "THERE IS A BODY" coming from a group of tourists running into their path.

Heiji froze. _Hoy, Kamii-sama. Is there too much to ask for just one day off?_ Gibber of "does anyone have any phone coverage? We got to call the police" insulted Heiji's ears before he managed to squirm in front of the group to ask about the location of the body.

"We were just checking out some of the caves."

"One of them was blocked by a large boulder so we decided to push it."

"OMG THERE WAS A BODY!"

A young girl pressed her face against one of the males, starting to shake with tears. An arm snuck around her waist to press her against him, he cooed softly into her ear.

"Which direction?" Heiji asked urgently. A pointed finger had him looking around quickly for Kudou, but the not-child was already gone. Cursing, Heiji ran in the direction pointed to him. _How does Kudou have enough energy to run? He was almost keeling over earlier._

The cavern spoken of was about two meters tall and a meter and a half abroad. The large boulder shoved next to it seems to be about the same size. It seems to be of the same type of stone as the mountain, with pieces of dry moss covering it. This probably made it impossible to distinguish from the mountain area around from the distance. _At least two or three people would be needed to push the boulder in front of the opening,_ Conan mused.

Jumping over some twigs on the ground he carefully stepped into the slightly chiller cavern. He spotted the body immediately and tsk-ed in annoyance. It was a body alright, but the screaming tourists could've mentioned it was a skeleton. Meaning it could have been there for years. The murderer, or more likely murderers, would have been far gone by now. All one really could do right now was identifying the body to give some family out there some rest finally knowing what happened to their missing family member.

 _I can leave that to the police_. Regardless of the thought, the chibi-detective didn't fancy going back out in the heath and continuing their Sunday-walk. Walking closer to the body, he crouched down next to it. The body lay sitting against the mountain wall, the hands folded in the lap and the fingers entwined. _Most likely alive when trapped in here, unlikely that the killer would entwine the fingers._ The time of death would be almost impossible to deduce without C-14-dating the body. The moistness of the cavern and likely the organisms living there could have explicit changing in the degree of bone decaying.

Conan clicked on the light on his watch to peer closer at the body. The first thing he noticed was a peculiar indentation on the femur. They looked like a child had gone over the skeleton with a crayon, making a network of criss-cross discolouring. He leaned closer for a better view. _Shot with an arrow? No, too many marks and there are no mark of damage on the bone, just discolouring. Psudeophatology?_ He eyed the bone carefully before coming to a decision. He sat back and grinned slightly.

"Found something?"

Conan almost jumped, a hand went to his chest automatically. He turned around to glare at the older teen. "Geez Hattori, wear a bell will you."

The dark skinned teen snorted and went to crouch next to him. "A skeleton huh?" Conan could swear he sounded almost disappointed, as it would mean there wasn't a mystery to be solved. "Skeletons creeps me out."

Conan twitched an eyebrow in disbelief. "You are detective, disfigured bodies chopped up, and you barely flinch. But skeletons freak you out?"

Hattori shot him a grumpy look. "Oy, we all got our lines."

The chibi-detective looked at him thoughtful for a few seconds, before decided to let it go. He pointed his flashlight in the direction of the femur. "Can you see the lines on the distal-lateral part on the femur?"

The dark skinned-teen hesitated, before looking closer out of curiosity. "Aye," he replied after a few seconds of scrutiny, "it looks like indentation from veins?"

Conan snorted at that. "Veins doesn't leave mark, baru." He pointed his index (distal phalanx!) finger on the mark. "I think secrete acid has decalcified the bone."

Hattori looked puzzled. "He was poisoned?"

The child startled at that, shooting the teen a look that clearly said, "Are you stupid or something?"

The detective gave a blanc responds. He hadn't seen Kudou send him that look since the first time they met. His stomach churned in anticipation of being corrected. There was nothing more he enjoyed but learning something he didn't know. A slight embarrassed blush covered his cheeks in the shadows of his hat. "What made them then?"

Conan pursed his lips. Careful eyes gouging Hattori's facial expression. "Plant roots."

Green eyes widening, a whisper of inhaled breath. "That's so cool." The teen crouched lower to get a better view. The child grinned, he agreed full hardly. Morbid thoughts perhaps, but it was cool. (1) Conan leaned back on the balls of his feet.

"So there is something you don't know then, Hattori?" He smirked. The older teen shot him a heated look.

"I know plenty about bones, Kudou," he gritted out sourly. "I just don't fancy filling my mind with inane details like that when it has nothing to do with a case."

"Then let's play a game."

Hattori perched a brow slightly. "A game? What kind of game?" he looked intrigued. Conan smirk widened in reply.

"Let's see who knows the most about human remains. Gouge the gender of the deceased by the scull." He got a snort in reply.

"That's easy Kudou." The dark skinned detective moved closer to the scull. His hand fluttered near the surface of the bone without touching, still seeming ill at easy to touch. He backed off after a minute.

"Definitely a male."

"Why is it a male?"

Hattori flashed him a look. "I have'ta tell yeh know too?" He got a nod in responds and sighed. "The supraorbital ridge is large. Clearly a male trait."

"The forehead is quite vertical though."

"Males can have vertical foreheads."

"Females can have large supraorbital ridges," Conan retorted. Hattori sent him another sour look.

"Fine, yeh got a point. Can't judge solely on one part of the scull."

"Is the orbital rim sharp or blunt?"

The dark hair teen cocked his head, peering into the eye socket. "I don't know, I can't tell."

Conan crossed his arms. "Then touch it."

The older teen flinched and turned around to glare at the not-child. "I'm not touchin' that!" Instead of retorting to child-naming, Conan's eyes flashed as a small gleeful smile curled around his lips.

"Coward," He sing-songed. Hattori growled in responds, every muscle in his body tensed, giving the not-child warning that he would pounce given any more provocation. Conan sighed, "You are no fun." He quickly spun around the older teen and reached up to gentle brush the edges of the eye-socket with a finger. _Quite sharp._ Next, he hovered his fingers over the mandible. _Small gracile mandible with a pointed chin._ He moved to the side to check on the temporal bone. _Small mastoid process. Possibly sign of ridge at posterior zygomatic arch._ He gently put his fingertips at either side of the parietal bone and moved the scull forwards. Behind him, he could hear Hattori's quick breathing as he moved away. _The occipital bone is smooth, no sign of a nuchal crest._ He let the scull gently back in position and moved away where he was almost perching on the skeleton.

"So, what's the verdict, mr. Bone-toucher?"

Conan shot his friend a disbelieving look. "You… didn't just say that." Hattori shrugged as a small wicked smile perched on his lips. The not-child shook his head. "It's a female."

This earned him a grunt, but the dark teen wisely held his tongue. Conan twitched an eyebrow.

"She has male traits, such as the supraorbital ridge and a possible ride at the posterior zygomatic arch but it's difficult to say for certain. I'd say we can definitely judge it to be female by looking at the pelvic bone." Both teens' eyes went to the previously mentioned area. Lack of any jokes of sexual kind showed the abnormal obsession they have with weird stuff.

"Oh, aye. Yer definitely right about tha'," Hattori replied after a few seconds of observing. "The Ilium is flaring and the acetabulum is small." He scratched his cheek. "But the pubic bone is narrow."

"True, but every other clue points it in the direction of it being female. You only really have to look at the sciatic notch to judge it to be female. Not to mention she has an excellent example of a subpubic concavity."

The dark haired teen grunted in reply. "That's it then, I guess ye win then. I thought it was a bloke."

Conan's contemplating expression turned into a grin. "Just the first round."

Heiji groaned. "There is more?" he shot Kudou a disbelieving look. How much fun could the kid have with the remains of a body? Heiji's interest in knowing osteology lied purely in: _I can identify the different kinds of bones. 'Nough said, give me something where flesh is attached to it please_.

"We could measure the bicondylar width of the femur to gouge the gender even further."

Heiji glanced at the not-child, relaxing when he was wearing a teasing grin. "I'm not touching any bones, Kudou. We don't need any more proof of the victim's gender." He replied rather grumpily. Not remotely willing to admit he didn't know what the _bicondylar width of a femur_ could possibly be. Must be the length of the shaft of the bone or one of its sides. Either way, he wasn't willing to be teased for asking.

"Let's try age estimation then." The watch-flash-light moved down to look at the pubic once more. Heiji stared at the bone. _Okay, that is definitely not a part of my education in osteology. This is why we have forensic teams_. He tried really hard not to glare at the-know-it-all. Kudou didn't seems to notice, too focused on his observations.

"I'd say early twenties. What do you recon Hattori?"

Conan was met with a blanc expression. He straightened slowly from his crouch. "Is something wrong?" He frowned slightly, _was there something wrong with my deduction? The Auricular surface is very billowing and has fine granularity. As is the symphyseal._ "You think it's late twenties? You could be right about that. It is difficult to pinpoint it with so little evidence and light."

A brief pause, then. "Yes, that exactly what's wrong with this. It's hard." Conan shot him a questionable look, wondering if there was something wrong with his friend. He shrugged.

"How tall do you recon she is?"

Haiji brightened at that, that was a question he could answer. He quickly scanned the position of the body to figure out how tall she would stand upright. "Hmh. About 1.57 meters I'd say." Kudou shook his head at him.

"That's not how you measure it Hattori, there's a simpler way." The shrunken-teen crouched down to the femur, and out of a pocket a measurement tape was magically produced. He then started to measure the length of the femur and tibia. _The heck is he doing now?_ Heiji mused with bewilderment.

"I'd say 1.625 meters with a fail calculation of three and a half centimetres." Kudou turned around to hand him the measurement tape. "You want to calculate too? There is always the possibility of fault in the actual measurement."

Heiji couldn't do anything else but to stare at the not-child, his jaw hanging. "How could you possibly know that?" he blurted out. Kudou blinked in confusion.

"Well. It is easy. By using Trotter's estimation of stature from long limb bones, you only have to measure the femur and the tibia, multiply it by 1.39 and adding 53.20. and you'll get your height (2)."

Silence. Heiji's head had officially stopped working. When had the kid had the chance to remember everything ever written in the history of the world? You could name any topic, any name, and there was a certainty that Kudou would know about it. He was a living, breathing enclopedia. He should be locked in a goddamn house filled with nothing but pillows so he couldn't hurt himself. Heiji was more relieved than he could express that the apotoxin 4846 hadn't killed his friend. It would have been like destroying one of Japan's most valuable resources. Heck, it would take away resource to the whole of humanity. Who knew how many people Kudou had saved in his short life? Defiantly far more then Heiji could ever hope to. He was loath to admit it, but Kudou was far the more intelligent of the two, and it left him churning, not with jealousy but relief that we was allowed to even touch someone who shone as bright as the other detective.

"Erh, Hattori, did you brain melt?" A small hand waving in front of his face made him snap out of his thoughts. Without thinking he grabbed the hand and blurted out.

"Let's get married."

"Guh," was the first reaction Conan could come up with. Eyes narrowed in suspicion. "I definitely think your brain melted." He snatched his hand back, and paused as he noticed Hattori face burning up with embarrassment.

"No, that's not – I didn't – Of course – "the darker teen's jaw fell shut with an audible 'click'. "Think about it, you are a walking, talking forensic lab. Together we would be the ultimate team." Hattori stood and pushed his baseball caps lower on his face, a small grin curled around his lips. "Like that, Bones show. One brilliant detective, one brilliant scientist. What more could make the villains of the world fear?" He shut out his arms and started to laugh.

Conan's shoulder fell and his right eye twitched at that, not remotely amused. _Oy, oy, Hattori's brain must've melted in the sun. That, or Shizuka-san dropped him as a baby… multiple times. Would explain a lot._ "You should start reading more forensic books then, everyone knows I'm the better detective."

A hand shut out to rub his hair. Conan flinched, shot a glare up at the older teen, before shutting his jaws around his thumb. Hattori yelped with pain and snatched his hand back. "The hell did you bite me for?" He glared, taking a step back.

"Wait, Hattori, don't-"

The warning came too late, Hattori's foot hooked on the tibia of the skeleton, and with a comical arch, the darker skinned teen blundered into the skeleton. Conan winced.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Kazuha looked up from where she had been chatting amicable with Ran. She knew that voice. "Heiji!" she gasped and started to run in the direction of the scream. _Don't be dead, Heiji, please._ However, the view she and Ran stumbled into, was now the one she had expected. In a corner Heiji lay on the ground shivering about "evil skeletons". Conan lay on the ground for a completely different kind of reason. He looked like he was dying of laughter. Kazuha and Ran shared a look. _Boys are strange_ , they agreed silently.

I'm just going to end it like that. It's too late to continue writing.

(1)This is one of my favourite things to observe on bones! Psudophatology (Plant roots is not a pseudophatology though, just to clearify) makes quite interesting finds, as does any of the diseases that makes bones look funny, such as diseases that gives extra bone growth. Tophonomic damage and copper-alloy staining is on the top of my list too (the bones have green splotches).

(2) Just to clarify, the estimation used on the femur and tibia actually comes from a male femur and tibia from one of my notes. It's male and white. I only changed the calculation so it would fit white female. Unfortunately, I've never had the opportunity to work with Asian bones, so I don't know the calculation used for those (the calculation changes from ethnicity). If anyone knows, I'd very much appreciate a correction.


End file.
